Overall, engagement rates for rich media mobile advertisements continue to show steady, quarter-over-quarter growth. In Q3, the average ad engagement rate was 13.7 percent, nearly a one percent increase over Q2. Location-based features have overtaken branding & presentation as the most engaging ad feature with 18.8 percent engagement rate. Coming in second was gaming features with 13.9 percent engagement rate. For the second quarter in a row, video was by far the most popular feature, appearing in nearly half (45 percent) of all the mobile advertising campaigns analyzed.

"Rich media mobile advertising is maturing quickly and its position within the marketing funnel is becoming clearer and more established – especially as engagement rates continue to grow,” said Matevz Klanjsek, co-founder and Chief Product Officer of Celtra. "Mobile rich media advertising is emerging as a powerful and extremely effective asset in the mid-funnel, successfully driving purchase consideration and intent. Gaming, location-based and social media features in the mobile ads engage consumers in a meaningful way, providing an essential and often missing link between typically overcrowded upper and lower funnels."

Celtra’s Q3 Mobile Rich Media Monitor Report represents data gathered from 170 handset and tablet campaigns and is intended to provide marketers with a baseline for ad performance so that they can plan successful and effective mobile campaigns. Additional interesting findings from the report include:

The average time spent on an ad unit was more than half a minute (32 seconds), a new metric that Celtra will continue to track in future reports.

Gaming features in mobile advertisements continue to show aggressive growth in engagement, with 20 percent increase in engagement rates when compared with Q2 data.

Social media features remain popular and engaging, showcasing an 8 percent engagement rate for in Q3.

Nearly half of all rich media mobile advertisements were expandables. Banners and interstitials made up the remaining campaigns with 23 percent and 28 percent respectively.

iOS continues to dominate Android as the platform of choice for advertisers (58 percent and 42 percent respectively).